Thursday, April 10, 2014

When it comes to profiling Christie, facts are for wussies

In the movie Love & Death, the main character impersonates a Spanish ambassador and is asked how much progress he’s made on a pending treaty. The ersatz diplomat replies, “I've come up with all the little details. If I can just think of the main points, we got something.”

Ryan Lizza’s article was geared toward a national audience that has recently turned its attention to the Garden State’s chief executive. It was not aimed at me, but the number of errors in material fact and other arguable characterizations of history were off-putting to anyone with a modicum of knowledge of recent history.

Let’s take a look at a few blunders that jumped off the page.

The 2006 U.S. Senate race was not contested by Congressman Robert Menendez as the article claims. Menendez was actually a U.S. Senator during the time period discussed. He was appointed by Jon Corzine to fill the newly elected governor’s vacant seat in January of that year. That means Menendez was already in the Senate before Solomon Dwek was arrested and turned government informant. It would be pretty difficult for Christie to turn his attention on “Menendez, then a Jersey City congressman” unless he had a WABAC machine. And for the record, Menendez is known as either a “Union City” or “Hudson County” politician.

The article also asserts that top Democrats were considering a run for governor later in Christie’s first term because “Christie’s popularity began to dip in 2012.” While some politicos may have thought Christie was beatable, his poll numbers were fairly stable in 2012 until Superstorm Sandy hit, at which point they skyrocketed. According to three independent polls that regularly track the governor – Monmouth University, Quinnipiac University, and FDU-Public Mind – Christie’s voter approval rating never went lower than 50% or higher than 59% from January to October that year.

While there were some minor fluctuations in the 16 poll readings taken during that ten month period, there is no point where a “dip” is evident. In fact, Christie’s job approval ratings in 2012 were consistently higher than they had been during his first two years in office. His average job approval rating for 2010 was 46%, in 2011 it was 50%, and for the first ten months of 2012 it was 54%. I’m pretty sure if I plot that on a graph, we won’t find any dip.

Another material error in the article is that the KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy is not, in fact, a charter school under New Jersey law, but a specially legislated “Renaissance School.” This distinction is noteworthy because the special designation was created in part to help George Norcross’s foundation avoid the onerous charter school application process. The irony here is that reporting the more accurate designation would have strengthened the author’s argument about Christie’s style.

Other statements stand out not because they are technically incorrect but because they are somewhat misleading. For example, saying “Christie and his prosecutors gave Dwek a second assignment” to ensnare politicians makes it sound like it was thrust upon the Dwek rather than coming at Dwek’s prompting, as has been reported elsewhere.

The article also contends that George Norcross and former Gov. Jim Florio are both “from Camden” with the context suggesting that they grew up in the city. While both were Camden County politicians, neither hails from Camden City. Norcross grew up in neighboring Pennsauken and Florio was raised in not-so-neighboring Brooklyn. Florio did move to Camden as an adult to attend law school before settling in a suburban community.

Oh. And one more. New Jersey has 565 municipalities, not 566 as the article claims. Although perhaps the New Yorker would have us believe that Staten Island is part of the Garden State rather than the Empire State. I hear that’s a pretty popular idea among its readership.

These errors and mischaracterizations are minor you might say. True. It doesn’t necessarily undermine the overall theme of Christie’s personality and governing approach the article attempts to portray. But in a time when mainstream journalism is under attack for both lack of relevancy and declining standards, you’ve got to wonder…

It is only fitting then to end by misappropriating another movie line that is itself an erroneous quote. To wit: “Facts? We don’t need no stinkin’ facts!”